Sunday, June 17, 2012

The Election

This morning I awoke at 6:30 a.m. and went outside and started doing laundry. Hand-washing your clothes takes time, forearm muscles, and never seems to get all the dirt out. Then we drove around to visit sites: a tholos tomb, ancient fortifications, and a recovery archaeology site in the middle of Farsala.

Then to the beach- and it was so windy, and hot, and the water was so warm. Swimming by myself with waves breaking over my head, and being tossed up and down, unable to see the shore sometimes, and currents pulling me in all different directions, I soon gave up and lay in the dappled shade under a tree and tried to read my book.

We ate a good lunch of fresh seafood.

And listened to night club music with the windows down in the car on the way back to the village.

I also called my father in England for Father's Day.

And overlying everything was this tension, this weird forced normalacy as people prepared to vote, and turned on their TV's, and logged on to their computers, and watched them out of the corner of their eyes.

You can sense the excitement. The normally placid village is gathering in the tavernas and the ouzeries, huddling together for whatever reason- to be on the forefront of any news. It's an ancient feeling. The crowd growing in the square. The town crier swaying from foot to foot. The children running rampant, and parents snapping at them to calm down. Gossip and theories being whispered, ear to ear, neighbour to neighbour.

And us, outsiders, being sucked in but still regarded with slight suspicion. We will see. We will see. We will see.